


Signed, Sealed and Delivered

by tatterdemalionAmberite (amberite)



Category: Homestuck, Kitaab 'alf layla wa-layla | One Thousand and One Nights
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Consent Issues, M/M, Multi, Mythic Overtones, OT3, Slavery, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-19
Updated: 2013-05-19
Packaged: 2017-12-12 06:42:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/808490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amberite/pseuds/tatterdemalionAmberite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tumblrfic prompted by Ashkatom and Chronicarus, finally archived here. Illustration (mildly NSFW, although I don't think it breaches the teen rating) by Saeto15.</p><p>  <em>It’s a good thing you’ve never cared for propriety, or you’d be feeling a lot worse about being wrapped around the little finger of a mutant psionic slave. You’re pretty uneasy as is, but you’ve never been against going to great lengths for the sake of great pailing.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Signed, Sealed and Delivered

**Author's Note:**

> Chronicarus gave me the prompt: Dualpsii; "Dualscar’s gentleness toward his precious ‘Jewel eye’ Psiioniic." Prompt phrase - "eternity awaits".
> 
> Ashkatom gave me the prompt: Suf/Psi/Dualscar, "I like that they balance each other out, but the relationship in itself is pretty disturbing given Dualscar’s history of enslaving the Dolorosa and the whole kill all lowbloods thing." Prompt phrase: "broken glass."
> 
> Then I swirled it all together with a dash of Scheherezade and some unreliable narration and assorted slavery problems.
> 
> Very, very AU and more than three sentences. Whoops.

Your pearl-beyond-price, the Psiioniic, sits stiffly at the table. Drifts of blue whorl about his horns. You’ve taken care to have his favorite dish brought to him, simple mealy grubcakes, though it looks desolately out of place on the silver and gold of your finest dishware and the chef wouldn’t let it pass out the kitchen door without calligraphic strokes of glaze splashed across it on the plate - but still he picks at it. 

He’s a smart one; smarter than you, you think sometimes. He knows full well that refusal of food is typically a direct route to physical punishment for any psionic in your keeping - or anyone with any fucking sense’s keeping, given how fast the damn creatures burn through calories. 

But it’s been a very long time since he’s been punished for anything. And he knows, too, that you’re probably not willing to take the risk of revoking his special privileges without a lot of provocation. You enjoy too much the counterprivilege of his scorching-hot skin against yours on the concupiscent couch - and you can tell the difference between willing and unwilling. That difference hasn’t always mattered to you in every part of your long life, but it matters now.

So it matters that the Psiioniic is sulking. 

“It’s the mutantblood,” you say, “Isn’t it. Your damn wwrigglin buddy. You don’t wwanna see him culled.”

“You told me onthe that if I ever wanted thomething thpecial, a plaything of my own, I could athk you and you’d pull the thtringth,” he says, grudgingly. “You were in your cupth at the time, though. Should I have truthted?”

And it’s a goad, and it’s the sort of thing only he can get away with speaking to the second most frightening troll in the world. Second to whom, it’s uncertain, but you are always second. And so you are unreasonably jealous of his request, and you know with smoldering certainty that there’s no way out but through.

“He’s a condemned man,” you protest. “He wwould be evven if he lacked a penchant for rampant sedition. You’re askin’ my house and my name on the line for this.”

“No. I’m refuthing to underethtimate you.”

This is the equivalent of injecting stimulants straight into your ego, of course. You don’t notice that until you’ve already agreed and he’s polished off his plate of grubcakes and you’ve dismissed him by the time you see in your mind’s eye exactly how smug that grin had turned, and when you see it you crush a crystal goblet in your fist, just for the satisfying sting of the tiny cuts and the bright violet of your own blood seeping out; and you make Psii clean it up, knowing all the while that he’ll take it as acknowledgment of his victory.

It’s a good thing you’ve never cared for propriety, or you’d be feeling a lot worse about being wrapped around the little finger of a mutant psionic slave. You’re pretty uneasy as is, but you’ve never been against going to great lengths for the sake of great pailing.

~~~

The way you finagle it, you’re just taking over the death-row imprisonment of the Signless. He’s still ostensibly slated for execution: it’s just your job now. 

And you realize, with sinking heart, that this is not going to work out in your favor.

You realize it on the second day he keeps you awake, hanging onto his every word, with Psii curled beside you breathing evenly. You can’t go on like this. There was meant to be an execution in there somewhere: you’re certain of it; but it’s not going to happen so long as this keeps happening instead. 

You always were a sucker for adventure stories, and you never realized exactly to what extent the lowbloods had their own. And _none of your slaves would ever have told you_. Not even the Psiioniic, who tells you more than anyone else ever has. Because half the shit that’s coming out of that nub-horned rebel’s mouth is itself punishable by death. And he _doesn’t care_ , he’s not afraid of you, he’s a condemned man already and he’s _not afraid of you_ and for some bizarre reason that makes you want to kiss him.

It’s evening and you’ve been up all day listening to his yarns until you’re completely exhausted and he’s telling you the tale of a simple rustblood escaping her rightful culling by your peers and you’re _rooting for the rustblood_. She’s clever and head-over-heels for a greenblood psionic and desperately imperiled and you -

“And the culling drones gained on them,” Signless says, “and Mahati was certain she would die, but Kekulo flew them toward the docks, and found an abandoned boat, which allowed them to escape. Only, just as the vessel set sail upon the sea, Kekulo fainted from the great effort she had expended protecting her matesprit, then…”

You’re not entirely sure the Psiioniic is sleeping, but when you look over he makes a murfling noise that can’t possibly be awake. This is madness. You should be in your recuperacoon. 

“And I would tell what Mahati did to revive her, but my throat is hoarse from long speech and the sun is setting, I would rather drink water in my last moments before my execution -“

It’s utterly transparent, and you’re bleary-eyed and really want to hear the end of this hoofbeastshit. “Fuckin’ fine, you got another night, okay.”

And you realize that the Psiioniic wasn’t sleeping that entire time, because of the way he suddenly relaxes next to you, slightly but unmistakably, and your bloodpusher turns over in your chest.

And Signless barely even reacts to the stay of his reckoning. He’s looking at you with those uncanny unblinking red eyes and not a drop of fear in him. All the fear is yours now, because there’s a level of treason even _you_ can’t hope to get away with and you’re going to have to go there. Nowhere to go but forward, and _forward_ will take you out of everything you’ve ever thought you knew.

  
[art by Saeto15](http://saeto15.tumblr.com/post/47091888528/slightly-nsfw-ish-but-not-enough-to-go-on-my-porn)


End file.
